A New Party Dedicated to Implementing Public Voting

[conseo]

Hi,

Michael Allan wrote:
> Ed Pastore said:
> > I think we're talking at cross-purposes to some extent. I still
> > don't see a direct competition between our ideas, because each is an
> > openness in a different aspect of the system.
> 
> I was focusing on the electoral aspect for simplicity.  Unfortunately
> the conflict doesn't go away if we expand the scope. ...
> 
> > An open primary is about who wins an election. An open party is
> > about what that person does after they are elected. These are very
> > different slices, and non-competitive. The point of the Open Party
> > is not to be a party, but to advocate and support the non-platform
> > of acting in accordance with the will of the people.
> 
> ... Open primaries are not restricted to elections.  They also cover
> laws, budgets, plans, policies and anything else that depends on the
> legitimation of an unforced consensus.

I will just skip here and sketch an argument for a more organic approach. 
While thinking big is necessary in terms of totality, this totality has to be 
plausible in relation to all of its parts. There are plenty of contradictions 
in current state-level or official institutions, so just copying one of their 
approaches will bring little new. Instead of discussing these forms we should 
discuss how we want to spread democracy. If I am about to be interested in 
your new institution, what can I expect from you?

I have recently read (and am still half-way through) "America Beyond 
Capitalism" from Gar Alperowitz. While I don't share his liberal utopian 
projection, he assembles plenty of facts about American society. Under the 
surface of official politics many things have changed, I will outline a few:

- there are more people now in cooperatives than in unions in the private 
sector (and these cooperatives are very often governed democratically). 
(United Steel Workers for instance now coops with Mondragon)
- 400 billion US$ are hold in Employee Stock Ownership Plans
- 800 billion 2002 in total, 8% of corporate stock
- there were 8.8 million worker-owners in the US in 2003
- there were 48.000 coops operating in the US in 2003
- 35 % percent of the biggest companies in the US are universities and medical 
institutions, they create more than 50% of the jobs (3)
- Community Development Corporations have sprung from a few hundred to nearly 
4000 in 2003
...

My point here is that there exits effective democratical practice on the 
ground which is still scattered all over the place and issues. Instead of 
understanding democracy in terms of the current political institutions, we 
should try to grow our practices from such a successful democratic 
infrastructure, because even if the gains are small we will get positive 
feedback and gain experience from the small d (democracy) for the big D (a 
point Alperowitz draws all the time). We also should take the economical point 
seriously, so people should benefit from the process. I can't see that 
happening by building another party or NGO alone (you can do that in this 
institution of course, but this would be additional overhead and legal 
problems etc.)
Mike and I have already discussed several practices (1) and will start 
exploring them in one month or so. My proposal would be to find a promising 
concrete issue and help people on the ground by bringing them together. An 
open collectively drafted budget for a hands-on issue is most interesting imo. 
(2) Since we don't need the institution for that, but only the tools and the 
practice, we can determine the form of the institution later. If we raise 
funds first, then we depend on charity and only postpone the problem imo.

What do you think?

conseo

(1) http://www.zelea.com/project/votorola/home.html
(2) http://zelea.com/w/Stuff:Votorola/p/budgeting
(3) for example: http://evergreencooperatives.com/